Posts by Robert Urquhart
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Russell Brown,
> You’re talking about your events being tarnished and how to prevent that. The women on this thread (and some of the men) are talking about this being only one facet of the wider issue – sexual intimidation and lack of respect for women. I think your priorities are a little skewed.
They’re not “my events”, I’m not the promoter. We’re talking about concrete steps to stop this happening at music events. I think that’s a laudable aim. And, again, it’s what we were talking abut upthread.
A mountain is moved (or levelled might be a better metaphor in this instance) one rock at a time. It's perfectly possible to acknowledge (or not) a wider problem and say "well here are the areas I have interest and influence, here is where I will try and make my difference" and hope it spreads; or that others are doing the same in their respective spheres.
That is what I think is happening here. The two conversations are not at cross-purposes.
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I am not at all a music person or part of the festival scene so I have nothing concrete to offer there. And the few times I have had real opportunity to call strangers out on their behaviour I admit I 'froze'. But within my social circles (which mostly consist of younger people) there is a definite movement to address the same sort of issues and as one of the "elders of the tribe" I do my best to support that.Men need to step up to address the issue; however that does mean that often as not, and with the best intentions, we are going to take a "male" approach to "analysing" and "solving" the "problem". I have learnt that we need to listen to women / those affected *first* and *in an ongoing fashion* to gain the perspective needed to usefully frame our responses, but that lesson was a long time taking and in truth it's still something that requires constant attention.
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Up Front: So Farewell Then, UCSA, in reply to Lilith __,
A bit strange to have the stage on one side of the amphitheatre and not in the middle *where it’s designed to be*!
Buildings may come and go, but Phil Anderson is eternal.
You are not the only person in my various social media to have made either of those comments :D
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I went along to the event today; it was actually an even more thinly disguised attempt to tap alumni for money than expected. Jokes on them; I judge not many of the people in attendance were the sort with money to spare.
Of the speakers only one evidenced any real connection to the building. If not for him it the ostensible purpose of the event would have been all but omitted from the proceedings.
My photos; including of the concepts/plans for the replacement building which were on display.
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Access: How many agencies does it take…, in reply to Angela Hart,
The craziest thing about solar at the moment is that if mains power goes off and you’re grid connected, you loose your solar as well. Because of risk to linesmen if there is unexpectedly power on the line when they try to fix it. You’d think the system could be rigged to automatically disconnect from the grid and be reconnected, possibly manually, when power is restored.
[Grumps] That's the only disappointment with my recently installed solar. (Excluding the circus of actually getting it installed, certified and an appropriate meter.) I can understand why, but I'd be perfectly happy to have to throw three big-ass switches in three different locations around the house to make sure everything was isolated before drawing directly from the panels, even if it was to a single power point. It undermines half the reason for getting it in the first place [/grumps]
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2008: a few bits of the UCSA building in behind the March for Undead Rights
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Unfortunately all my pre-2009 photos are offline but I shall attempt to poke through them over the next week and maybe pull up some representative ones from KAOS stunts during the 00s. For now the best I can do is this battle in the amphitheatre, with glimpses of the corner of the main cafe and "The Foundry" in the background.
I also met a lot of people who were and are very important to me through time spent in that little corner of the world.
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Solar panels are appearing on my garage roof here in Christchurch as I type :D
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Hard News: 2015: The Budget of what?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
You didn’t link your blog?
Dammit. Let's try that again, without trying to be clever with linked text.
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Hard News: 2015: The Budget of what?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I think there is a plan for a more sophisticated system where companies will report payroll to IRD in realtime and be issued adjustments. (There is also a privacy issue where you might not want one employer to know about your side job and how much they pay you).
You can read more about this plan and give feedback / make submissions at https://vision.makingtaxsimpler.ird.govt.nz/
(My own primary comments are copied in my blog and I think the main thrust of them would address your concern about privacy issues – pity it’s unlikely to happen.)
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They died for a belief in our country and what we stand for
What we stood for I could accept - "Where Britain went we went etc" - but 100 years later that is no longer what we stand for.
This morning I read Gordon Campbell's excellent piece in Werewolf; I know it has already been linked upthread but for proximity